Adobe Scale tool doesn’t seem to work and how to “fix” it

I was following along with the instructor on using Adobe Illustrator. I went to go use the Scale tool and nothing seemed to happen. I tried selecting the layer, I tried meatballing the Parent layer. I tried meatballing the layer that the circle object was actually drawn. Nothing seemed to work.

There is one more thing I could have done which I didn’t do at the the time. It’s to get out the trusty old “black” arrow. Select the item you want to scale. Then scale the item!

Again here’s the procedure on how to use the scale tool:

Draw an object

Use the black tool to select ALL of the object

Click on the Scale tool (S)

Check where the “Scale point” is. By default it’s set to the middle of the object. If that’s not where you want to scale the object from please move it to the spot by clicking on it and moving it to the new spot

Move the scale tool and now it will behave like you expected.

Other notes/tips

Holding “Alt” allow you to bring up the dialog to copy the object and make it smaller/bigger

Holding “Shift makes the object increase in the same ration in both X & Y coordinates.